Why can’t we recycle plastic by simply melting and remolding it, like we do with metal?
In: Chemistry
when you heat it up enough to remold it, part of it burns away.
this problem only gets worse the less pure it is, especialy if there is food waste.
with metal, the impurities are the ones that burn.
Metals are elements, when we use them, we use them in elemental form or in relatively simple, low-energy molecules. Plastics are polymers, large, complicated, high-energy molecules with many bonds. Those bonds want to break to create lower energy bonds. When plastic is heated, those large molecules start to break apart in places and the plastic “degrades,” losing the properties that we want in the plastic. When the recycle it, plastic becomes less useful, and if you do it multiple times, it becomes unusable.
Latest Answers